


In The Occipital Lobe Of The Beholder

by wordswordswords7



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: Character Death, Friendship, Gen, Post-Season/Series 04, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 01:58:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16231862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswordswords7/pseuds/wordswordswords7
Summary: When a close friend dies, Liv discovers that memories are greatly affected by how a person perceives the world.Takes place after Season Four.





	In The Occipital Lobe Of The Beholder

Liv had noticed it once before, ages ago it seems, when she’d been investigating the murder of one of Clive’s CI’s. She had chased him down an alley shortly before his death, only to tackle him to the ground as a result of some particularly potent linebacker brains.

Russ Freedman’s memory of her had made Liv seem larger than life—terrifying, and monstrous even though she hadn’t gone full zombie. What was more, this image of her hadn’t matched up with the dash cam footage from Clive’s car. In it (and in hindsight) she had been small and ridiculous. Sure, she had been hot-headed and overconfident—but she was still just a 5-foot-nothing Medical Examiner in a hoody and sneakers, accosting a junkie two heads taller than her.

“I think the memories of people are affected by subjectivity,” she had said to Ravi after having the vision. He’d been wrapped up in monitoring New Hope for recurrent zombieism that he’d only given her a non-committal grunt in reply.

That night they’d discovered the downside to junkie brains and the topic was long forgotten amidst the unbearable episodes of heroin withdrawal.

Now, so much later—when it’s Ravi’s body lying empty in the metal wall of drawers—Liv knows her hypothesis had been right. She knows because she is reliving a moment from only the day before when she’d reunited a family separated by the New Seattle wall in her role as Renegade. To Ravi, Liv had shone. He’d watched her and seen her as a beacon of hope, as a friend, and as something more than herself. Liv remembers feeling exhausted and drained, but to him she’d been something close to radiant. The pride that had welled in his chest wells in hers now. She'd felt small that day, overwhelmed and clinging to the end of her rope as the ever growing list of people in need of help threatened to drown her. But to Ravi she'd been brilliant. He had worried about her, but never doubted her. And where Liv remembers the day being cold and weary, to Ravi it had been crisp and full of possibilities.

Liv wonders if she ever deserved him.

The memory fades and the feeling of pride and love is replaced by almost unbearable grief. Liv sucks in a desperate breath and wishes she had been alone to experience it. Instead, she tries to stem the flow of tears before turning to face Clive and Peyton who are still reeling with shock.

“Anything?” Major asks from the doorway of the morgue, looking truly militant in his FG gear.

Through a sudden spasm of anger, Liv silently acknowledges that he's looking pale faced and devastated. The Ravi part of her loves Major in the fraternal way that the Liv part of her can't bring herself to do, and it makes her worry about him. But she pushes the feeling away and is surprised to find that she is able to overcome Ravi's prevailing sense of goodness. Maybe it's because it was a Fillmore Graves bullet that had killed him, but she's not feeling too inclined to sympathize with the man in charge of the operation. Not to mention the painful fresh memory of the kidnapping that resulted in her boyfriend’s head meeting the heavy end of a guillotine.

The look she gives him makes Major flinch. “Nothing you’d find relevant.”

**Author's Note:**

> Had a think, got it out. Now it's words.
> 
> Hope you liked it.


End file.
